


In the Wild Woods Together

by Adlanth



Category: TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-22
Updated: 2013-02-22
Packaged: 2017-12-03 06:03:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 14,698
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/695004
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Adlanth/pseuds/Adlanth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"...and Beleg and Túrin were companions in every peril, and walked far and wide in the wild woods together." (<i>The  Children of Húrin</i>)</p><p>After Túrin flees from Doriath, Beleg seeks him in the wild, then, later, on Amon Rûdh.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [just_jenni](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=just_jenni).



He had found the outlaws at last.

Now a noose held him pinioned against the tree. His arms had been drawn back tightly on either side of the trunk and bound there. He could not sit, but stood leaning against the tree, drawing strength from it as he might.

The outlaws had lit a fire at the mouth of the cave, so that the smoke could drift out. It was close enough to shed a flickering glow on Beleg, but not so close that he might feel the warmth. From time to time he saw the outlaws’ eyes, gleaming in the shadows, glancing darkly at him. But they did not speak to him, or dare go to him. They cast him neither food nor water.

Night drew on, then a sullen day came. It rained, but the tree shielded him from the drops, and he was left to gasp after what dripped from the leaves. Water slid along the tree trunk, and seeped into his clothing. Wind rose, and as it blew through his sodden clothes, Beleg felt the pain of cold as a mortal might. 

He fell into a shallow sleep, his thoughts drifting out incoherently, was awoken by the dull, scraping hiss of a blade on a whetstone. When he raised his head, his eyes met those of the outlaw Andróg, who sat by the fire, sharpening his knife.

Another day. Another night.

 

*

 

They were afraid of him. They did not ignore him simply to torment him; there was fear in their eyes when they glanced at him. As far as they were concerned, he was _that Elf_ (a word they spoke as Elves did that of ‘Orc’) that had stalked them for so many days. They were right about this much: he had spied on them, listening to them without being seen, trying to know for sure if they were indeed Túrin’s companions. Without meaning to, he had learned many things about them. Their names, their haunts, the villages from which they hailed. The crimes for which they had been expelled, turned out of the palisades which fenced a few houses. 

In Túrin’s absence their leader was the man called Andróg. It was he who had captured Beleg. A clever, dangerous man, a prey who had turned against the hunter. Beleg remembered the feel of Andróg’s knife against his throat, and Andróg’s cold gaze. Then a blow to the head. When he had woken up, he had found himself bound to the tree. 

 

*

 

When he opened his eyes again, the rain had stopped and something was being pressed against his lips. A water skin. A trickle of liquid poured past his lips and he swallowed greedily. Closing his eyes again, he thought only of the water. Then, just as his thirst had receded past the point of pain, the water skin was withdrawn. 

Andróg stepped back and squatted on the ground, rocking on the balls of his booted feet. He lay the water skin on his lap and his pale eyes never left Beleg.

“You have been spying on us, Elf,” he said. “What do you want with us?”

“I sought a friend,” Beleg said, his voice raspy.

“An Elf like yourself?” Andróg laid the flat of his hand across his own throat. “If so, you may not meet with him again.”

“A man,” said Beleg. “Túrin.”

“I know no man of that name,” Andróg said. (But he was leaning forward, and there was an hungry glint in his eyes. Perhaps he was not aware of this, but Beleg, haggard as he was, noticed.) “What is he like, that friend of yours?”

“Tall, black-haired, fair-skinned. Stern but not unkind. He would have met you some months ago.”

“Yes,” Andróg said. “This man I might know. How came you to know him? I thought your kind had little love for Men.” 

Beleg answered that he had been raised in Doriath as a fosterling, and Andróg gave a quick bark of a laugh. “So our Neithan comes from Doriath after all. I thought he might be - he sounded like some of Elves we… we met. But it was too strange a tale.”

 _Neithan_ , Beleg thought. The Wronged. Then it was as though Andróg’s pale eyes had pierced through, for he asked.

“Who wronged him, then? Was it you, Elf? What made him leave Doriath?”

Beleg weakly shook his head.

“He was wrongly accused of a crime.”

“Wrongly? Few of our company were wrongly accused. Accused, yes, but wrongly? I should know.”

Beleg gave no answer, and Andróg, after a few moments, rose. For a moment, in spite of himself, Beleg hoped that he might give him water again. But he did not. He stood, his head cocked, staring into the distance. He had fine features, Beleg noticed, almost too fine, cruelly delicate; his nose was narrow, his jaw thin. Then he turned and his light, grey blue eyes bore into Beleg.

“Túrin,” he said. “That was the name you gave him. Túrin, son of Húrin?” Beleg gave no answer, but his silence seemed to be answer enough. Andróg let out a low whistle, and a strange, amazed smile twisted his lips. “I heard enough about his mother - a proud one - but the son they never spoke of. I thought he might be dead after all - that they’d lied about it. I remember old men speaking about him in awe, though they’d never met him, saying he’d free Dor Lómin. And all this time, a ward of Doriath!” He laughed again, a wild and mirthless bark. “And an outlaw! I hope for both their sakes that this tale does not reach Eledhwen.” 

Beleg, mortified, strained against his bonds - as though his unbound hands might have helped him call back his words.

“Do not speak his name,” he said. “Not if you have any loyalty for him.”

Andróg stepped closer, and thrust his face towards Beleg’s.

“Speak not of loyalty to me,” he said, his breath fanning Beleg’s cheek. “He slew our leader, and I might have slit his throat, taken his place, and noone’d have complained. I didn’t!”

And then he stepped again, again with the quickness of a snake, and his eyes, light though they were, seemed to burn; his snarling lips uncovered his teeth. He raised his hand and for a moment Beleg thought he might strike, but then he merely grasped the rope that tied Beleg to the tree and yanked it, testing the firmness of his bonds. He turned, and walked back to the cave.

Then he paused, and turned, and looked again at Beleg.

“I almost forgot,” he said. “What is your name, Elf?”

“Beleg.” He swallowed. “Beleg Cúthalion.”

A swift, dangerous smile lit Andróg’s face.

“I have your _c_ ú, Cúthalion,” he said. “And as for _thalion_ \- we shall see.”

 

*

 

Afterwards, Beleg thought: he must have lain long in darkness, pondering this Neithan - _our_ Neithan, he had said. Lying on a poor cot beside Túrin, he must have heard his breathing, and fingered the bone hilt of his crude knife, half-pulling it out of its sheath and sliding it back again, dreaming of plunging it into Túrin’s throat - and yet ever pausing on the brink of the deed. He must have wondered at the mystery of Túrin - this strange man, fell and terrible but with moments of pity, whom he could not slay.

 _But at least I knew him_ , Beleg thought. _I knew the boy he was._ He was drifting into unconsciousness, sinking to the ground, slumping in his bonds, but as he stared into the trees he thought he saw the boy again, walking with his aged companions, who hobbled behind - and he a mere child, a sapling, a boy in tattered clothes, who lifted sober and unafraid eyes towards Beleg.

 

*

 

Then Beleg hung, slackly, along the tree. _I will not die_ , he thought. _I have lived through the greatest battle of our age. I will not die here of thirst._ Memories of the Nirnaeth Arnoediad invaded his waking thoughts: he saw Orcs swarming through the trees, Balrogs lifting their whips and lashing them down to curl hotly around his sore, dry throat. _Mablung!_ He thought, and cried out (only a whisper came out). _Save me!_

But Mablung merely ran through the trees, earnest and with his sword drawn. He did not see Beleg, and Beleg knew that he was giving the chase to Túrin, and Túrin to Saeros - all of them hurrying to their doom.

 

*

 

It was night, and he had not moved, only turned his head towards the cave. Perhaps, if they saw his face, one would feel pity. But his filthy hair hung in front of his eyes. It had stopped raining, but now and then moisture would drop from the leaves above him.

Then there was noise coming from the woods - as of boots sloshing through mud, broken branches. He glimpsed a single torch, sputtering in the sodden air. He tried to call out, but his voice was a mere rasp. There was movement then in the cave, and voices called out. “Neithan!” he heard – Andróg’s voice, not cold now but eager. _Let it be him_ , Beleg thought. _Neithan_. _No. Túrin._

He heard footsteps coming close, saw rain-stained boots on the ground before him. He tried to lift his head.

“Who is that?” a voice said.

A hand touched his chin, propped his head upright. The torch shone in his eyes and he closed them at once, blinded, his face contorting. 

Then he felt someone standing very close to him, and fingers that moved to his jaw. Eyes peered at him closely, and a voice whispered: “Beleg?”

 _Yes. Yes._ He tried to nod. Túrin was utterly still, frozen in recognition. Then he slung his arm around Beleg’s waist, propping him up, and Beleg guessed that his other hand must have grabbed a knife because he felt his bonds thrum, as if they were being sawn at, and Túrin was still silent, almost trembling with tension, against him, even when suddenly the rope gave way and Beleg sank gracelessly towards the muddy ground, kept from sprawling only by Túrin’s grip on him. For a while, they remained like this, floundering in the mud, embracing fiercely. Beleg did not know what the rest of the outlaws were doing. He rested his chin on Túrin’s shoulder and did not move.

Then Túrin was acting, turning him and keeping an arm around him even as he took Beleg’s arm and slung it across his own shoulders. “Can you walk?” he said, his voice tight and low. Beleg nodded vaguely, moved his legs though he could not feel his feet, and let himself be half-dragged towards the cave. “Stoke the fire!” Túrin shouted, and the outlaws scuttled at the sound of his voice, two of them moving towards the back of fire and hastily coming back, bearing logs. Soon Túrin was gently letting Beleg down near the fire. He could have wept in relief.

Túrin sat beside him. He seemed unable to speak, and merely grasped Beleg’s fingers, with hands that were too warm, their touch almost painful on Beleg’s chilled flesh. Then he spoke, but it was only to call for water and hot stew. Still his eyes, red rimmed and wet, did not leave Beleg. He held a roughly-hewn wooden cup to Beleg’s lips and let him drink, fed him stew with a spoon that Beleg’s shaking fingers had let fall. His face looked sterner than it had ever been in Doriath, thinner and harder - and yet tears now and then ran down his cheek and his sharp jaw.

Beleg wanted to speak, almost to comfort him, but then the warmth of the fire reached him, piercing as it were through layers of cold flesh, and the hot stew warmed him from within, and suddenly he wanted to do nothing beside bask in that warmth. His head fell forward on his raised knees, and dimly he felt that he was being divested of his wet clothes, and wrapped in blankets… but all he wanted was to curl on the ground and sleep, sleep. 

He raised his head slightly, and Túrin was there still, easing him to the floor. He had found him after all - or been found. That was well. So he slept.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cú - bow  
> thalion - hero, dauntless man


	2. Chapter 2

He awoke. He was lying beneath blankets, with another laid beneath him on the floor of the cave. The tunic and loose trousers he wore were not his own, and they were smelly, but at least they were dry. Beside him the fire was a pile of still hot embers. Then, on the other side, was Túrin. His eyes were closed, but he was half sitting up, his back to the wall of the cave, as if he had meant to stay awake. His head drooped slightly towards Beleg. For a while, Beleg merely looked at him. In sleep he looked younger, but more weary.

A frown twisted Túrin’s face, and he seemed to be startled into wakefulness. Whatever nightmare had woken Túrin, his expression softened as soon as his eyes rested on him. He cast a quick glance about them, but the outlaws were yet asleep. Silently he shifted towards Beleg, and his fingers brushed over Beleg’s face. His tenderness seemed almost out of place in their rough surroundings, but it felt comforting.

“Are you better?” he whispered, his lips close to Beleg’s ears.

Beleg nodded, and sat up. He still felt sore, and hungry, and he might have liked to sleep longer still, but already his body was healing itself. His wrists, he noted, had been rubbed with an unguent - one whose composition, judging by its smell, he had taught to Túrin himself.

“I am sorry,” Túrin went on. “I should have been here sooner.” Then he stopped himself, and his face grew darker - an expression of self-loathing overspreading his features. “No,” he said. “They should not have done this at all.”

“Has it happened before?” Beleg asked.

“No,” Túrin answered, but he hesitated, and Beleg’s heart grew cold. “But men and elves have been waylaid before, and slain. I said nothing.” Before Beleg could bring himself to ask a question whose answer he was not sure he wanted, Túrin went on. “No,” he said. “I did not slay anyone myself - only Orcs. I merely ate these travellers' food, I suppose. And now maybe you have too. Would you like more?” he asked, with a slight, crooked smile.

“Please,” Beleg said, and he shrugged, though he was troubled. Túrin rose and stepped over him to reach the fire, and the pot that hung above it. He ladled some of the stew into two bowls, and beckoned Beleg to sit beneath the trees, some way away from the mouth of the cave. They sat down together: Túrin with his back to the cave, Beleg crosswise from him, wishing to see neither the cave nor the tree to which he had been bound.

The night before he had found the stew the most delicious meal he’d ever tasted - now he was not so sure, and not because of Túrin’s words alone. It was a mixture of roots, grains, perhaps some game, and too much water; a thing of undefinable colour and undefinable taste. Still, Beleg was yet hungry enough to eat it. And it was good to be with Túrin again, in the woods, in silence, as though nothing had happened and they were back on the marches of Doriath.

“How did you find me?” Túrin asked after a while.

“You have acquired something of a reputation.”

“What?” said Túrin darkly. “As another outlaw to be hunted down?”

“I did not mean that. I have heard it said that you acted more fairly than most. And I found you because you were my pupil in woodcraft. I taught you to go unobserved by most - but not by me.”

Túrin nodded. “And why did you find me?” he asked.

Beleg should have answered in any other way - should have said, innocuously, ‘Because you are my friend’, or even ‘To bring you Thingol’s pardon’, or… But he said (what he truly meant and desired):

“To bring you back to Doriath.”

At once a pall of anger darkened Túrin’s face. But he did not answer: another shadow fell between them. A moment later Beleg heard Andróg's voice:

“I am not troubling you, my lords?”

After a few seconds, Túrin answered, his stern eyes not leaving Beleg's face:

“No. Speak, Andróg.”

“I merely meant to ask for Beleg’s forgiveness.” Beleg forced himself to look up. Andróg’s tone, and his expression, were perfectly smooth, meek almost. He went on. “Surely a man like yourself, who has guarded his own realm for so many years, will have understood why we acted as we did.”

Beleg nodded stiffly. _At least we give our prisoners water, and don’t leave them to starve,_ he thought, but he did not wish to quarrel with Andróg - not with Andróg standing so smooth-faced above him, and Túrin tense at his side.

“But any friend of Túrin,” he went on, “is a friend of mine, and you seem very _dear_ to him. I have brought you back your weapons,” Andróg went on, and turning to the side he picked them up: Belthronding and Anglachel. He handed the bow to Beleg first, though his gaze rested longingly on it, and his fingers trailed on the smooth wood. Beleg nearly snatched it from his hands. Then Andróg gave him back Anglachel. “A very dire blade,” he said. “I was afraid to handle it.”

 _I wish you_ had _used it_ , Beleg thought. _And come to an ill end by it._

“I’ve never seen this sword before,” Túrin said.

“A gift of Thingol’s,” Beleg answered.

“Ah.” Túrin smiled mirthlessly. “Did he think I’d want this kind of persuasion to be hauled back to Doriath?”

“No!” Beleg said, nearly crying out. “Thingol gave no such order, and I meant to use this sword against Orcs only. Túrin, you were pardoned.”

Túrin’s face betrayed his surprise, perhaps his relief. In a low voice he asked Andróg to leave and the man obeyed, casting a last, curious glance behind him. Beleg went on, speaking of the trial, of his own effort, and Nellas’s testimony, and at last, Thingol’s verdict.

As Beleg spoke, something seemed to loosen in Túrin: a knot, something tightly coiled, a tension that must have been so constant that Beleg had scarcely noticed its presence. It was vanishing now, and yet that look of wounded pride did not disappear. When Beleg's tale was done, he stayed silent for a while. 

“Will you come back?” Beleg asked at last. “Thingol will be glad to pardon you...”

“What,” said Túrin, “receive his pardon, when he should ask for mine? Besides, I am the leader of this company now, and I doubt that his clemency would extend to _them_.”

Beleg sat, silent and stunned. He had not expected this harshness in Túrin, but joy; he had underestimated the bitterness of his hurt. But that was Túrin: swift to anger, and slow to forgiveness – though not to pity. He rose, and paced among the trees. Beleg remembered moments when he had been like this, agitated and angry. But whatever bitter words he thought, he seemed to know better than to speak them in front of Beleg. 

After a while, Andróg came back to them. The silence that reigned between Beleg and Túrin seemed to please him; he needed no words to exude a sort of poisonous satisfaction. 

“The hunt shall be leaving soon,” he said to Túrin, and then left again. 

“I will be going with them,” Túrin said to Beleg, not looking at him. “I think it would be best if I thought alone.” And then he was gone, again, and Beleg did not follow.

 

*

 

Beleg spent the rest of the morning in the cave, resting and mending, with only one outlaw left by him - a young man clearly in awe and fear of Beleg, who remained at the back of the cave mending some old cloak, and throwing glances at him while Beleg sat by the fire. The others had gone hunting - game or men, Beleg did not know which.

Some time after midday they returned, and Beleg found that whatever they’d been seeking, it was the former they’d found: a large deer, slung on a branch, and a few hares caught in traps. And they were merry now, singing about the deeds of the ‘Deer's Bane’, as they mockingly called him, a clumsy fellow with a bow who had apparently done better than usual. They did not seem so sinister now, and yet Beleg could find no warmth in his heart for them; thinking, as he watched them gut the beasts, that the gentlest among them would as fain have gutted him.

And then there was Túrin. He had not caught anything, it seemed. It was he who, to Beleg’s relief, came up to him.

“Are you better?” he asked. Defiant still, thought Beleg, and yet trying to make amends. “May I speak alone with you?”

“You asked before, but yes, and yes,” said Beleg. “Shall we leave now?”

Túrin glanced about them. “Can we not eat first?” he asked, and for a moment he did not seem like the stern youth of twenty that he was, but a boy of fourteen. Beleg smiled, and nodded.

Their meal was not much different, save for a few strips of venison - and those not very good. Beleg would have waited to eat the meat, but the outlaws were too hungry to do so, and faced with Túrin's insistence that he should eat and heal himself, he could hardly refuse. After their meal, some of the outlaws went on their own errands, and a few remained in the cave. But Túrin and Beleg rose and left.

Túrin took them on a path through the trees. Some places Beleg thought he recognised, from his long journeys on the outlaws’ heels, but further and further Túrin took them from the cave. They were going west, Beleg noticed, as if even for a mere walk through the woods he did not wish to go closer to Doriath.

He said as much, hoping to keep his tone light, and Túrin turned and said: “Do not speak of Doriath again. Not unless you mean to drag me there, bound hand and foot as you were.”

“Would that I could,” Beleg said, with a laugh. “I'd drag you back like an errant child.” He spoke as if in jest, though a small part of him wished that he could. But Túrin did not smile.

“It is your pardon for which I should ask”, he said. “You did much for me, and I was a churl to you.”

“You are forgiven,” Beleg said, and he laid his hand on Túrin’s shoulder. A comforting gesture - a gesture of forgiveness - nothing more. And yet he felt the warmth of Túrin’s flesh beneath his palm, and how he leant, almost imperceptibly, into the gesture. His hand slipped towards Túrin’s neck, touched the naked skin there, where a pulse beat. 

And then he found himself clasping him, drawing him close, into a crushing embrace, as they had done the night before - not with relief alone this time, but with a different need. His fingers wound tight into Túrin's black hair, and his lips found Túrin's neck; Túrin's hands gripped his shoulders, and his chest rose and fell urgently against Beleg's. “I missed you,” Beleg said quietly. Túrin did not answer, but Beleg felt him nod speechlessly, and clasp him tighter still - that was answer enough.

He drew back, and looked on Túrin’s face - his grey eyes, solemn still but hopeful, his lips. He bent down, and crushed that mouth under his, kissing him and drawing him tighter still, as if to prevent him from ever fleeing again. Then he was pushing Túrin against a tree, sliding a hand between Túrin’s thighs. Túrin bucked against him, and buried his face into Beleg’s shoulder, muffling some inarticulate cry. Then his own hand slipped between their bodies, brushing against Beleg’s, and tugged with trembling fingers at the laces of Beleg’s trousers. He struggled for a moment, and Beleg almost laughed, until Túrin’s fingers, hot and callused, wrapped around his length - and then it was he who let out a low, raw sound of desire. He ground Túrin harder against the tree, smiled as he gasped. He unlaced Túrin’s trousers, and took him in hand.

There was no waiting then, no teasing. For a moment Beleg thought of sliding to his knees to take Túrin in his mouth, or to push Túrin down to do the same, and he groaned at the thought, stifling the sound by biting into Túrin’s shoulder. But he was loath to relinquish contact even for a second, and so stroked Túrin roughly, and felt Túrin do the same. His lips trailed up Túrin’s neck, then jaw, found his mouth, and so Beleg kissed him again, eyes shut, as though he might shut out everything that was not Túrin, his hand, his flesh, his mouth. As he brought their shafts into contact Túrin shuddered, and thrust - two, three, four times - and then came. Beleg caught him as he slumped against the tree, his arms about his chest, hands digging into the tree-trunk, and thrust against him fiercely as Túrin’s hand moved on him, just a few more strokes, until he too came, with a shudder and a gasp.

For a time they remained like this, standing silent and still. It was cold and wet, and there was something undignified about their position: clothes untucked, a froth of mud at their feet, splinters under Beleg’s nails. And yet Beleg, as he listened to Túrin’s breathing slow down, was reluctant to relinquish their embrace, and so, it seemed, was Túrin. He looked more peaceful than before, lighter of spirit; his gaze was almost tender; and he looked young, like a mere boy, easily appeased.

“Was it for this that you came to me, then?” he said, and there was a rare light in his eyes. Beleg kissed him again.

 


	3. Chapter 3

At least Túrin was alive, and well. That was the main thing, Beleg told himself. His life was rough, admittedly, but then Túrin had never been the courtly sort, as Saeros had found. His men were not the kind Beleg would have chosen for companions, but clearly they loved Túrin, and he too, in his way, seemed to love them well enough. He was loyal to them, and it amused Beleg to see him ape their ways. He spoke in their accent, a rougher kind of Sindarin, and it seemed to Beleg that he was playing a role, like a boy who pretends to be gruffer and more hardened than he really is. When alone with Beleg he spoke the tongue to which he had been raised, or at least that which he had spoken in Doriath, and he was again the solemn, but kind boy he had known - but only then. With the outlaws he was a sterner, harder man. And yet he changed them too: hard though their life was, he did not like cruelty, and Beleg saw how the outlaws changed to please him. Men twice his age, with scarred, beaten faces, bent to do the bidding of their captain; and they were drawn to him.

In the meantime Beleg had mended entirely. He had even had occasion to heal some of Túrin’s men. Not that they were eager to let themselves be healed by him. Some appeared to think that he would poison them with his unguents and potions, or even with words; others barely dared meet his gaze at all, and avoided him as best they could, as if he were simply too strange, too other for them. But Túrin scolded them, and showed them how readily he submitted to Beleg’s healing, and he prevailed eventually. After that, the outlaws liked him better. Even Andróg had only smooth words and smooth smiles. He at least did not fear Beleg: that much was clear. And as to what he truly felt…

And it was spring again, slowly stealing over Beleriand. Beleg, impervious though he usually was to cold and dark, saw the effect of lengthening and warmer days on the outlaws. Leaves clad the trees, and the last remnants of snow melted away. The grass, that had been trampled and burnt by frost, grew fuller and greener again. Beleg liked to see it - and besides it provided a more comfortable bed for his trysts with Túrin. He’d found it exciting enough, in a way, to take Túrin against a tree, or on some bare and cold rock… but there was something to be said for wrestling Túrin to his knees on a soft couch of grass and moss, or for sprawling beneath him on freshly sprung leaves. 

When they were spent they laid down on a cloak thrown across the warm bracken. Túrin’s head laid across his outstretched arm, his brow against Beleg’s naked shoulder. Soon they would have to rise, and lace up again the clothes they’d half removed. They had gone far enough from the cave, but not so far that an outlaw could not, quite by chance, find them as they lay, and the thought made Beleg shudder. He could well imagine Andróg, looking down at them with that slight, wry smile of his. His pale eyes would flicker over Beleg’s half-naked body, and they would rest on Túrin’s - as they did, sometimes, when Andróg thought noone was looking.

“You and Andróg,” Beleg said, the words spilling out of him suddenly. “Have you ever…?”

Túrin shifted against him.

“Once or twice,” he muttered. 

“Oh.”

“It didn’t… mean much,” Túrin added, softly. “You know how it is… men in the company of their hands.” He raised himself on an elbow, and looked down at Beleg. Beleg wasn’t sure what his expression was exactly, but it must have been telling, for Túrin wrinkled his eyebrows, looking boyish and laughing for a moment, and said: “Oh, and no Heavy Hand has ever touched your-”

Beleg caught him by the chin, and squeezed his cheeks. 

“Impudent whelp,” he said. “We may have… but that was a long time ago, before you came to us. And don’t you dare compare your Andróg to Mablung. He’s my dearest friend, and he was a good friend to you.”

Túrin freed himself of Beleg’s grip but leant closer, so they lay chest to chest.

“How is Mablung?” he asked. He had not enquired before about any still in Doriath.

“He was well when last I saw him. I think he would be gladder still to see you again.”

Túrin was silent for a while. Perhaps he was considering, at last, returning to Doriath. Perhaps Beleg should have tried to sway him thus at first: make him remember the friends he had had there, not just him but Mablung, and the marchwardens, Nellas, even Melian and Thingol… Then Túrin spoke again.

“He must have been at my trial,” he said.

Beleg stifled a sigh, but Túrin, lying so close to his naked chest, must have felt his intake of breath.

“He was among the chief witnesses, yes.”

“And was he a friend to me?”

“In his way. He was truthful, as always. I think that in his heart he inclined to you, but he hoped to be fair.”

Again there was silence, and when Túrin spoke again his voice was uncharacteristically soft and muffled.

“He struck dread into my heart.”

For a moment Beleg did not know what to say, so baffled was he by Túrin’s words.

“Mablung? He has always wished you well. He loves you dearly.”

“I know. That is the strangest thing. I know he would never harm me, and yet when he spoke to me that day, I heard my doom.” To Beleg’s ears, a deadly silence seemed to have fallen, save for the whistling of wind in the trees. “I saw myself a long time from now, and he spoke words that led me to my doom.” A shudder ran through Túrin’s body, and then through Beleg’s. “This man loves me but he will be my death.”


	4. Chapter 4

Spring drew on, then summer, and it was time to return to Doriath.

“Won’t you stay?” Túrin asked, sullen and beautiful. Beleg leant close and kissed him - he had said his goodbyes to the outlaws already (some of whom seemed surprisingly loath to see him go), and Túrin had accompanied some way on the road to Doriath.

“No,” Beleg said, smiling. “I have spent enough time trying to convince you to come back to Doriath. If you will be stubborn, then so shall I. Besides, I was bidden bring news of your well-being to those who love you still in Doriath. It is you who was meant to come back with me.”

Túrin's face darkened briefly.

“Speak not to me of Doriath,” he said. “You know what I think.”

“And you will not come, not even for my sake?”

“And bring my ill-luck upon you? No.” Túrin said. He looked sad and brave at that moment, and Beleg, without thinking, drew closer still to him, and kissed him.

“You kind and witless man,” he said. “Heedless of those who would help you.”

Túrin gave a faint smile.

“You shall not make our parting easier by giving me insult, Cúthalion.”

“No,” Beleg said. “But how could I leave you now for good, to fend for yourself against the will of Morgoth.”

“You may come again,” Túrin said, and his eyes and voice spoke his desire clearly enough. “I shall always be glad to see you.” And this time it was he who kissed Beleg, urgent and longing.

Then they parted, and Beleg turned, again and again, to see him standing still, dark and tall, amid the trees. “Fare thee well,” he cried, and Túrin raised his hand in answer. “Till we meet again!”

 

*

 

He set out for Doriath, and although he had hoped to bring Túrin back, his heart was lighter than it had been, and the journey seemed shorter. Soon he found himself on paths he knew well, recognising old, huge trees he knew almost as well as if they were Elves, and he knew he was very close to the Girdle.

It was dusk when he reached the borders at last. He glimpsed movement amid the trees, grey-green cloaks that flitted in the twilight air, and rustlings that were not the sound of leaves. A voice called out to him:

“Who goes there?”

Beleg smiled then, for he knew the voice. He called out in answer.

“Does your sight grow dim, my lord of the Heavy Hand, and do you not know your friends?”

A moment later Mablung was before him, then in his arms, clasping him in a crushing embrace, which Beleg returned. Then Mablung let go of him, and merely held him at arm’s length, his hand still resting on Beleg’s shoulder. His eyes, hazel in a weathered face, searched Beleg’s face.

“You are well?” he asked. Even as Beleg nodded, Mablung went on. “And you found him?”

“I did,” Beleg said. “He is alive, and unharmed.”

Mablung smiled then. 

“I thought he would be - you’d have been grimmer else. But does he dwell so far? You have been long absent, Cúthalion.”

“No,” Beleg said. “Two weeks’ walking at the most. I found him easily enough.”

“And it took you so long to come back, or to send word?”

Mablung spoke as if he were jesting, but Beleg saw shadows of genuine hurt in his eyes. He must have worried, Beleg realised, and he suddenly felt ashamed of these stolen days with Túrin.

“I would have found a messenger, or sent a bird,” he said, “but Túrin’s company would not have liked it, I think.”

“Why not?”

“He is living among outlaws now,” Beleg said. Growing suddenly aware of Mablung’s marchwardens standing about them, he lowered his voice. “Orc-hunters,” he added in a whisper, “and also men whose own people have cast them out. Fell men, some of them, who might have suspected me of having designs against them.”

Mablung seemed appalled.

“Túrin is a fosterling of the King,” he said. “What business does he have with outlaws?”

“He too thought himself outlawed until not so long ago.”

“But he is not. Surely you told him that.”

“I did.” Beleg said. He stepped closer to Mablung, and looked at him with beseeching eyes, whispering: “He is, as you said, Thingol’s fosterling. The King must be told first. Let not idle gossip be spread about him.”

Mablung was silent for a moment, and then he sighed. “You are right,” he said. “You should tell your tale to the King and Queen - I’ll accompany you if I may - and I should simply be glad to know that he and you are well.”

Thereafter, as they walked towards Menegroth in the night, he spoke no word against Túrin. There was nothing unkind about Mablung, no uncharitable thought that he did not strive to mend. If Túrin had decided to live among outlaws, Mablung would find no fault with him, eventually. After all he had let Túrin go when all accused him, and he would easily have been overpowered by Mablung and his men. But his response threw a strange light over the last months, over Beleg himself - the second captain of Doriath, enjoying a rough life among criminals. It was as though something had made him forget, a glamour or a curse thrown over Túrin, to make him draw men to him. 

 

*

 

It had only been a few months, yet Menegroth seemed strange to him. After weeks spent in a cave that was a mere hollow in the rock, the underground halls of Thingol and Melian seemed too vast, too lavish. 

The King’s and the Queen’s reaction to his news was not so different from Mablung’s. They rejoiced to know he was well, were saddened to hear that he would not come. Thingol seemed resigned, but Melian’s gaze fell on Beleg, clear and cutting.

“You will go and join him again,” she said. It did not sound like a question, though Beleg did find himself nodding.

“Yes,” he answered. “If you command it, I shall.”

Melian arched an eyebrow. 

“I command nothing,” she said. “I thought it was your desire.”

“Yes,” he answered slowly. “I suppose it is.”

“Good,” Thingol said. “I have not forgiven how you helped him, when I was about to condemn him. Perhaps you will be able to watch over him, proud though he is.”

“Yes,” Melian said. “And I shall give you what gifts I may.”

They took their leave of Thingol, and Melian led him through corridors he had never seen, to the chambers where, he found, she kept the _lembas_ she made with her women. He had eaten of the food before, especially in times of dire need. He remembered sharing a cake with Mablung during the Nirnaeth, huddled amid all the dead, and how that simple food had comforted him, reminding him of home. Perhaps it would do good to Túrin. Melian took a few of the cakes, wrapped in leaves with her seal upon them, and placed it in his hands.

“Thank you, milady,” he said. Then he nearly faltered, for he had rarely been alone in her presence, had never asked anything of her. “Earlier,” he said. “You spoke as if you knew of my fate.”

“I know a little of yours. I know that it leads back to Túrin.”

“And what of his, milady?”

Melian was silent, and her bright gaze grew clouded. For a long time she was utterly still, and not even a wisp of her dark hair moved, as if she were seeking some far-off vision. Eventually she moved again, and laughed. It was not a pleasant sound, but bitter and sad. Beleg almost recoiled, for there was no less power in that grim sound than in her voice.

“No,” the Queen said. “He is a man, and men’s fates are veiled to me. Do you think I would tell you of your doom, when I could not see my daughter’s fate or prevent it?” Then she fell silent again, and although she stood as tall as Beleg it seemed to him that she was bent by some terrible, crushing grief.

At last she moved again. She walked away, and beckoned him to follow her. Time had seemed to stretch infinitely, in that moment of vulnerability. But now she was as cool, as restrained as ever. 

“I do not know what his fate is,” she said. “But I know that it will not touch him alone. The fate of kingdoms and peoples is enmeshed with his. Is it not strange, that the fate of whole realms should be clearer to me than that of a single child? But it is.”

She turned to him, pausing, and her gaze was clear and cutting and bright - no cloud of sorrow there.

“Since you will go,” she said, “guard him well.” This time it was a command. “Perhaps more hangs on this than we know.”

 

*

 

He retuned to the northern marches with Mablung. He did not feel like sleeping in his own lodge, which he found cold and sad, for the few nights that remained. Instead he went with Mablung, whose duties had been left, for a few days, with another captain. For a week or so they hunted together, and walked the marches. The woods were luxuriant, the air, warm. It might have been any other summer - before Túrin, before the Nirnaeth Arnoediad, before Beren even. Once, catching a glimpse of movement up in a tree, a flash of fabric, he caught himself wondering if it was Lúthien. But thinking of Lúthien in a tree brought Nellas to mind - he had hoped that she would come, so he could share his news (though Mablung had promised to tell her if he could not) - and Nellas reminded him of Túrin.

And so did Mablung, in a way, by _not_ being Túrin. They had known each other for centuries, a millennium, and Beleg loved him well. They understood each other without words, felt no need for speech, in easy companionship. For a long time Beleg had thought that his love for Túrin was of the same nature, a deep friendship that now and then was kindled into desire. But it was not so, he realised: it was a fiercer, more painful thing.

That night, as they sat in the lodge, drinking together until it was late, moths drawn to their windows by candle-light, he told Mablung he would leave in the morrow. Mablung nodded, then said, after a while:

“You will be careful, won't you?”

Beleg smiled. “I will, mother-hen.” But then he had confided to Mablung, and to Mablung alone, about his ill-treatment at the hands of the outlaws, and perhaps that was why Mablung only smiled faintly at his jesting tone. “I’ll not be gone forever,” Beleg added, as light-heartedly as he could.

“I hope not,” Mablung said, and he sighed. “Túrin among the outlaws. A strange fate, after all.”

“They love him well enough. It would surprise you.”

Mablung nodded, and was silent for a while. 

“I wonder if that is part of his curse,” he said at last, softly.

“That he should be loved?”

“Yes. That he draws others to himself. If he alone were ruined, if there was noone to mourn him… It would not matter so much. But others love him, and are caught in his doom.” Mablung looked at him, and his gaze was keen. “He draws you to himself, doesn't he? And he is very dear to you.”

“As dear as you are.”

But Mablung shook his head. “Nay, dearer,” he said. For a while he was silent, and the candlelight played on his face and drew shadows here and there. At last he spoke, quieter still and sad. “Beleg, he will die.”

Beleg shrugged, though the words chilled him, and he took a swig of mead.

“I shall protect him as best I can.”

“I do not speak of his curse,” Mablung said, “but of his Gift. Not even Morgoth can take that from him, and you are no Lúthien.”

“No,” Beleg said, faintly. “But I will be with him while I may.”

“And then?”

“Return to Doriath.”

Túrin's death. He had worried so much about his immediate fate that he had not considered this. How long would it be now? Twenty, thirty - sixty years from then, perhaps, at the most. Then Beleg would be in Doriath again, yes, without hope of bringing the King’s fosterling back. Without hope of seeing him again. There would be Mablung, and the King and Queen, his friends among the marchwardens, the forests he loved, the crafts he knew. Why should Túrin matter? He remembered the darkness before the sun and moon, he had lived for centuries, millennia without Túrin - all of his life but for what? Fifteen years? The blink of an eye. And yet.

“Forgive me,” Mablung said. His large, rough hands came to enclose Beleg’s own. 

Beleg, drawing a shaky breath, shook his head. Yet a dread he had never known before rose in him. For Túrin’s death and for his cursed life. Perhaps Melian had not been able to see into his and Túrin’s fate, but it seemed to him that he could catch a glimpse - a glimpse of grief and terror. For a moment he longed to forget Túrin, to merely stay there with Mablung, in the woods he loved. And yet it was only a moment - at once he felt himself gripped by some force beyond himself, a terrible desire. 

 

*

 

He left that morning. Mablung went with him to the border. The Queen’s power was almost a palpable presence there, and although it could not hold him back, Beleg felt it keenly, a pressure on his skin. At the corner of his eye things twisted and shimmered, paths shifted as they wound among the trees. Then they must have reached a limit, and suddenly that sensation faded, and he knew that they had stepped outside the Girdle.

He stopped, and turned to Mablung, who was walking on.

“Do you mean to go on to Amon Rûdh with me, Mablung?” he said softly.

Mablung halted suddenly, as if he had been lost in thought before, and turned.

“No,” he said, smiling faintly, almost self-consciously, at his own absent-mindedness. “I suppose I should leave you here.”

Beleg nodded. Looking at Mablung, standing in greychain mail amid the trees, his sword slung at his side, he remembered Túrin’s words - his strange fear of meeting Mablung again. And in Mablung’s eyes there was also a shadow of unease, a misgiving, a reluctance to let him go. He remembered seeing such an expression on a fellow hunter’s face, when Mablung and he had left for the Nirnaeth Arnoediad. Perhaps it was Túrin’s curse this time that made Mablung’s heart falter: the doom that Morgoth had wrought for the children of Húrin, tendrils of power extending far into the land, twining about them - as powerful as any of Melian’s enchantments. And it would not touch Túrin alone, Melian had said, and they were all enmeshed - Doriath and the outlaws, Thingol and Melian and Mablung and him. Even then the thought of Túrin pulled at Beleg’s heart, like a pain - stronger, he thought, ever since he had crossed the Girdle.

“I shall come back,” he said, against his own fears.

“We will look to your return,” Mablung said. “I will wait for it.” Beleg inclined his head, and they were silent and still for a moment, and the tree-leaves alone rustled. When Mablung spoke again, there was a strange emotion in his voice. “Fare thee well, Cúthalion.”

“And you, Mablung.”

And he felt it too now, this reluctance. But he must turn, and he did. He walked away, on a barely trodden path. When he turned again, after a few scores of paces, there was Mablung still, standing amid the woods. He raised his hand, and Mablung answered. “Fare thee well!” came his cry again among the trees.

When he had gone further, beyond a stream and down a gentle slope, and could no longer turn to see Mablung, a sound reached him - deep and loud. Mablung’s horn: a call and a sound of mourning, that made him shudder in spite of himself. He reached for his own, and blew in answer. Again and again as he walked they called to each other, until at last he had gone too far, and the last echoes of Doriath fell utterly still behind him.

 

 


	5. Chapter 5

Evening was drawing on when at last he saw Amon Rûdh in the distance, its bald head reared above the treetops. The hill’s red, blood-stained summit glinted in the light of the dying sun. An ominous sight - and yet his heart leapt in his chest.

This time he knew better than to be caught: he had learned all about their watches, and he knew where to find them. It was easy, after all, to elude their watchmen, and to climb the steep and slippery paths that led up Amon Rûdh; the outlaws' feet had beaten the paths, enough for a sharp-eyed Elf to follow, even in the dark. Once, one of the outlaws raised startled eyes, but Beleg, casting back his hood just a fraction, raised a finger to his lips; and the man, recognising him, kept silent. So he made his way through the hidden entrance, and thence up narrow stairs.

Then he was upon them, in a dark, enclosed hall, where a fire burned, its smoke trickling up into some cunningly-made, disguised smoke-shaft. It might have been a forest by night, and their camp fire. Judging by the bedrolls scattered here and there, a fair few of the outlaws slept there - as though the rest of the house were inhospitable to them.

And there, sitting by the fire, was Túrin. Perhaps it was only Beleg who saw it that way, but it seemed to him that all the outlaws, sitting here and there in the dark, were arranged around him; conscious of their captain’s presence, and somehow bound to him, whether they faced him or not. As on a painting, their faces swam out of the dark, in bits and pieces, a nose and a cheek, a gleaming eye and a jaw; a hand, a leg. But Túrin, in front of the fire, alone was entirely lit; he sat at the very centre, and he was beautiful.

Beleg sprang among them. There was a commotion, frightened shouts, muffled shufflings in the dark. He paid them no heed, but cast back his hood, and Túrin’s gaze fell upon him. 

Túrin rose at once; the fire shone in his face, and flames were reflected in his eyes. He said only one word - “Beleg” - as though all his love were contained in it. And it was enough for Beleg: to look on him, on the warmth of his face.

The outlaws, having recognised him at last, laughed raucously amongst themselves, perhaps to dispel their fright. Still Beleg did not look at them. He might, afterwards, give them some trinkets he’d brought back from Doriath in his pack, and speak with such few among them as had befriended him. But not now.

Then, from among the shadows behind Túrin, a figure stirred. Of all the speaking creatures, Elves and Men and Dwarves, that Beleg had yet seen, he was the smallest - but not young. An old and stunted thing, with a bent back and a ragged beard that spilled onto its hollowed chest, and keen, dark, clever eyes. 

It looked at Beleg without a word, for a long time, and it seemed to Beleg that its eyes pierced him through, and saw him with hate. Then it raised its eyes to Túrin. At that Túrin stirred, as though pricked by that gaze. He glanced down, and then back at Beleg. With a gesture, he said:

“This is Beleg Cúthalion.” And then, looking at Beleg: “Mîm of the Noegyth Nibin. The master of this house.”

 

*

 

Mîm had bowed in greeting, but grudgingly and not very low. At least he had none of the smooth slipperiness of Andróg, and was frank in his dislike. From what little Beleg knew of the Petty Dwarves, perhaps that was no surprising. Soon after Beleg’s arrival, Mîm had asked to take his leave, and Túrin had bidden him good night. He had left, darting a dark look at Beleg. But whatever his thoughts on Beleg, there had been no anger in Mîm’s tone when speaking to Túrin; on the contrary, Beleg heard in his voice the strangest, slightest, most reluctant warmth. A puzzle to Beleg - but one that he would solve later.

In the meantime he had reacquainted himself with the outlaws. Some seemed gladder to see him than he would have expected. Andróg was there, his manner as friendly as before - and his eyes, and the twist of his mouth, speaking just as strongly of his true feelings. He clasped Beleg’s hand, and spoke of his joy at seeing him again; Beleg wondered if he knew how he leant forward, aggressively, into Beleg, with a crushing grip on Beleg’s hand.

Now he was alone with Túrin. The outlaws’ captain did not sleep with them: Mîm had found for him a chamber of stone, deep in the heart of the hill. It made Beleg slightly uneasy (used as he was to the underground halls of Menegroth) to think of so much stone about him. But it was a Dwarf’s hall, and to Dwarves there was no greater comfort than to live burrowed deeply into the rock; and no greater honour than to be given such a kingly chamber.

At least it was high-roofed enough for Beleg, and it had a certain stark beauty. No wood, no living materials except for the pelts and woven blankets on the bed and a stack of logs in a corner; only finely crafted, smooth rock: carved here to form a hearth, and there, a table; a throne-like chair. Even the bed was of rock, a solid mass rising from the floor itself, bas-relief in intricate geometrical shapes climbing up the sides.

Túrin had been bending down to set a log on the fire; now he turned. In the outlaws’ company he had spoken freely; now he was returned to his previous state of mute emotion. Mute and eloquent - Beleg, silent himself, knew exactly what he felt. Perhaps it was better that way. Separation, this time, had kindled something in him, to which he could put no words. For all the darkness of Amon Rûdh there was a light there - not a light but a fire, residing in Túrin’s face, his eyes, beneath his skin. Before he might have thought it mere attraction, a desire to take that proud, beautiful human youth; but he had felt dread when leaving Doriath again, and braved it for his sake. 

Speechlessly he walked up to Túrin and kissed him. Túrin pressed up against him. This time it was not as it had been during their first reunion: less febrile, more deliberate.

When he lay down next to Túrin, he was surprised by the smoothness of the bed, by stone wrought to a skin-like fineness. Not that it was soft, of course - but it held a strange warmth, as if the loving craft of the Dwarves had persuaded the stone itself to yield some of its life. But Túrin had contrived a mattress of sorts with blankets and furs, and they laid down on that.

He discarded his own clothes, and removed Túrin’s: his quilted jerkin of mannish make, and his shirt of fine linen, woven in Doriath, and long since worn and dirtied, his high leather boots and his trousers. He reacquainted himself Túrin’s warm, pale skin, and when Túrin reached for him he pinned his hands easily with one of his own. Túrin strained against him, but did not free himself, and Beleg, with his lips and his free hand, continued his exploration of Túrin’s body: the beating pulse at his throat and the hard muscle of his shoulders, the scars, new and old, on his stomach. When he reached his prick, Túrin shuddered, and arched into his touch, and Beleg was reminded of the first time he had done this. Túrin had been a youth of nineteen - far too young by the reckoning of Elves, and still just come of age by that of Men… but willing, eager even, though he was solemn still, and grave - until Beleg had touched him in that way and then, just as now, a shudder had run through him.

Still, when Beleg breached him Túrin made not a sound, only tensed, and arched, and it was Beleg who let out a low, helpless moan. It was his body who moved as if of its own accord, so all he could do was bend down, and kiss Túrin’s shuddering back, reaching around to stroke him, to bring him, at last, to trembling completion - Túrin’s, and then, almost at once, his own. 

 


	6. Chapter 6

The next day, Túrin took him about the halls of Mîm’s house - Bar-en-Danwedh, as he called it - then to the top of the hill. The path that led there was narrow and treacherous, sometimes so steep that they did not walk so much as climb, knees scrabbling against the stony ground. At least it had not rained; otherwise the path would have been a stream of mud. Higher up, near the top, it would not have made such a difference: the slope grew even steeper, an almost vertical cliff, with little vegetation to which they could cling. Beleg managed well enough, with his thin leather shoes, and his strong, lithe Elven body; he marvelled more at Túrin’s sinewy endurance.

At last they reached the summit, a flat patch of rock, bare and bald indeed, save for flowering, blood-like _seregon_ spilling over the stone. But as in the chambers below, the hill was beautiful in its bareness, wild and stern as it was. Far above the forest the air was pure and the wind blew strongly, and the late summer light shone on the trees below. The land stretched about them: the wall of the Andram far to the south, a very faint line on the horizon, and, perhaps, the fens of Sirion in the distance; the hills where Nargothrond lay hidden; the valley of Tumhalad; and to the North, the forest of Brethil, at which Túrin gazed for a long time, as though intrigued, though he could not say why. 

To the East lay Doriath, and Túrin did not turn that way. But Beleg did: he tried to guess at the river Esgalduin running through the woods, flowing from beneath the gates of Menegroth. But if Túrin noticed he said nothing of it - which was better than a rebuke, perhaps. Instead he showed Beleg how easily troops might be seen from above: servants of Morgoth, he said, Orcs and the like, often marched through Hithlum and Dor Lómin, and from there crossed the Ered Wethrin, pausing only by the defiled waters of Ivrin before harassing Men and what few Elves lived in the lands about. 

But now that they held Amon Rûdh, Túrin said, they could easily waylay the Orcs, drive them back, relieve the Edain and win them to their cause. His eyes shone as he spoke, and he gazed North, to Brethil and beyond, to the North-West, as if, with an unerring longing, he could look to the lands of Dor Lómin, where his mother and sister still dwelt. Beleg could not begrudge him his enthusiasm, reckless as it seemed; on the contrary, he felt himself stirred, and his fingers longed for his bow. 

 

*

 

When they returned to the halls of Mîm they found Andróg, sitting by the fire, sharpening knives. He greeted them, and peered at them with bright, faintly mocking eyes.

“Did you enjoy the hill top, my lords?” he called out.

“Yes,” said Túrin. “We did. The air is very clear today, and we could see very far.”

“Ah yes, the view,” Andróg said. “I thought you might have had other causes of enjoyment.”

Túrin did not answer, but he had a knack for appearing guilty even when he was not, Beleg realised. No wonder even Mablung had thought him more at fault than he truly was. Andróg’s smile grew just a little wider, his thin lips twisting. And yet it was clear also that his eyes rested long on Túrin, meeting Beleg’s but briefly in challenge, then returning to Túrin. He thought himself clever, and hard, and perhaps he was - and yet (to one who also loved Túrin, if not, perhaps, to Túrin himself) he was painfully obvious in his longing. Maybe his provocations would be best ignored.

“Knives, Andróg?” he said, with a nod to the blades that rested on Andróg’s lap. “I thought you were an archer.”

“I was,” Andróg answered, looking sour all of a sudden. “But the stunted one will not have it.”

Something stirred in the dark, and Mîm appeared, from whatever corner he had been lurking in. 

“No,” he said, hissing, “I won’t.” He had looked darkly on Beleg, but that seemed to be nothing compared to his loathing of Andróg. The man smiled, and yet there was a hint of fear in his eyes.

“Spying again, Mîm?” he said. Sitting on a low bench of stone beside the hearth, he was still as tall as Mîm. The Dwarf was old beside, his beard almost all white, his back bent, his hands gnarled and thin. And yet Beleg would not have liked to defy him so openly. There was something animal-like about him; he was like a wounded thing that might just spring and bite.

“In my own halls?” he said, hissing. Andróg leant forward.

“They are yours still by our leave. Mind what you say, if you wish to live in them.” 

“Enough!” Túrin shouted. “Hold your peace, both of you!”

Beleg turned in surprise to him. He had rarely heard Túrin thunder like that, and for a single moment he nearly laughed, as if seeing a child playing at being an adult. But there was nothing to laugh about, he realised, and Túrin was no mere youth now but a captain of men indeed. At the sound of his voice Andróg and Mîm did pause, and looked almost abashed. 

“Andróg,” he went on, in a softer tone. “Do you not have business elsewhere? Surely some of the watchmen would welcome your company.” 

Andróg, with a grudging nod, slid his knives beneath his belt. Túrin turned to Mîm:

“I know the doom you laid on him,” he said. “He will be held to it. But I can do no more.”

Mîm was silent, his dark eyes fixed on Túrin, as though warring with himself.

“For your sake,” he said at last, as though compelled by some force beyond himself. “For your sake alone.”

What Mîm was promising, Beleg did not know; or why he should speak in this way. And yet he felt a jolt of recognition, of kinship with that strangest, most unlikely of creatures.

 

*

 

That night, they lay on their stone bed. It must have made a huge, ostentation couch for a Petty-Dwarf lord and his consort, Beleg thought, and yet it was almost too short for them, and narrow enough. Not that Beleg truly minded: he liked to feel the length of Túrin’s body beside his. He embraced him from behind, with an arm about his waist, and his chin in the nook between Túrin’s shoulder and his neck. Túrin’s hand had found his, and both lay, fingers entangled, near his chest. 

He was not quite asleep, Beleg noted: the crease of worry across his brow that faded to a line only when he was sleeping was still there. But he still seemed serene, warm and loose, and he was half-naked, dishevelled and sticky, and quite, quite beautiful: almost Elven-fair, as his mother had been (or so the tales said) in her youth - but not entirely, already touched, young as he was, by grief… and all the more lovely, in Beleg’s eyes, for these imperfections. 

Beleg, feeling sleep come, drew him closer still. His eyes closed. In the same instant a pair of deep-set, dark eyes flashed in his mind’s eyes. _Mîm_ \- he thought, jolting awake. The old Dwarf’s eye had burned in such a way when they had met Andróg’s, and Beleg’s - flaming with jealous hate, the like of which Beleg had never seen before. No, not even in scornful Saeros’s eyes. But Mîm’s gaze had also rested softly on Túrin.

“What is it?” Túrin asked, sounding sleepy and calm.

“Mîm. How did you come to live in his house?”

Túrin tensed, and a sliver of grey iris showed beneath his lid. The name he used to Mîm’s halls flashed in Beleg’s mind - Bar-en-Danwedh, the House of Ransom - and at once he regretted asking. Yet he must know.

“We captured him,” Túrin answered, in a low, stifled voice. “The price of his freedom was to let his dwell in his house.”

“Was that all?”

“We slew his son,” Túrin said after a while. “Or rather Andróg did, but I was there, and I was his captain. He loosed an arrow among the trees and it found Khîm, Mîm’s son. He crawled through the forest and reached Amon Rûdh, but by the time Mîm, who was still our captive, reached the house, he was dead.”

“So he hates Andróg.”

“Yes. I did not allow him to avenge himself on Andróg, but he laid a curse on him all the same. Andróg may not use his bow now, or else he’ll die.”

“I thought you had sworn to bear arms only against Morgoth’s creatures.”

Túrin did not answer for a while.

“This was my intent,” he said at last. 

“Does he have any other kin, this Mîm?”

“He and Ibun are the last of their kin, and even Ibun is old. I have heard them mention no Dwarf-woman.”

“Perhaps there are other Petty-Dwarves.”

“No,” Túrin said. “Mîm said they were the last of all the Noegyth Nibin.”

He shifted and turned in Beleg’s arms, so that he lay on his back, and gazed into Beleg’s eyes.

“He says that your kin hunted his for sport before the Sun and Moon. Can that be true?”

“No,” Beleg said at once. “I have never heard of it.” And yet even as he spoke his blood ran cold and a dim memory came to him, of dark woods and a hunting party, and a strange creature they had found, standing almost Elf-like on two legs, and clad in skins and fabrics, but small and hairy. But he had shot no arrow, and it had only happened once…

Túrin seemed to study his face, and at length he said.

“At any rate, this is why Mîm hates you so.”

“You know him well, then,” Beleg said, in a voice that sounded uneasy to his own ears.

“I speak with him sometimes. I mourned with him, though perhaps I had no right.”

 _And no need,_ Beleg thought, _save for your strange kindness_. 

“And so he loves you.”

“Loves me?” Túrin said, brow crinkling.

“Yes,” Beleg said, thinking of Mîm’s gaze on Túrin. “Not in the way that I love you, or Andróg does, but in his way… of course. As a father, perhaps, or a servant to his lord…”

“Andróg too?” Túrin said, with a quirk of his eyebrow and a twist of his mouth.

“Yes,” Beleg said. Then he shifted against Túrin, and pinned him beneath him, sliding a leg between Túrin’s. “And I.”

Túrin let out a weak, joyless laugh.

“What a strange and twisted thing love must be, then. They and I are bound by our wrongs, and you I drag into an uncouth life, unworthy of you.”

Beleg bit his tongue, refrained from asking him, yet again, to come back. Instead he bent down, and Túrin rose to meet his kiss. _Silence_ , he thought, _let us be silent._ He regretted having spoken. He was aware of his own love, binding him like a noose, or like a web tying him to other fates. But at least he had Túrin - his love, and his body, the warm skin he wanted to devour, whose limbs he wanted to clasp to himself. Whatever strange kinship Túrin had found with other men, broken and bitter as they were, it was his company he sought, his touch, his love. His lips trailed urgently over Túrin’s flesh now, and his movements grew more frenzied, and he clung to that thought.

“They and I,” Túrin said, afterwards, as Beleg was sinking into sleep. “We have known grief, and we have done very ill things. I love you, Beleg, because you have not. But they are my kin too, wrong and wicked as they are.”

In the days that came later, Beleg remembered this, when he saw Túrin and Mîm, talking together, sitting in Mîm's smithy. He never heard what they spoke of, and to him their friendship remained as incomprehensible as ever – but then so was perhaps his affair with Túrin.


	7. Chapter 7

In the following months Túrin’s plans unfolded as he had hoped. He had been right about Amon Rûdh and the possibilities it afforded; for once he acted as he desired, not as fate pushed him. His wounded, hunted look left him; he was not so much an outlaw, a man in flight, as a captain of his own men, with his own lordship. The men saw this, and they too changed. When before they had been content to hunt and steal to supply their own needs, they were now led into battle against Orcs and other servants of Morgoth. A few did not relish this, and fled, afraid and unwilling, but the most part remained, and seemed to take pride in accepting Túrin’s commands. After a while, some of the villagers who had been rescued from Orc raids decided to join with them. They were still few, but men and women who had bent to Morgoth’s will since the days of Nirnaeth Arnoediad seemed to know hope again. Túrin, fearing spies, did not allow them into Bar-en-Danwedh, but with Mîm and Ibun’s help he armed them as he might, and he left many an outlaw in the villages with them, to aid them and teach them such craft of wood and war as he had learned in Doriath and later taught to the outlaws. He spoke often of Dor Lómin these days, and of his plans to go there; and there was more than mere longing in his voice - Beleg heard hope instead.

He too was glad to fight again. In the years after the Nirnaeth Arnoediad, war had brought back too many memories of horror, but these days he took up his bow and sword again, and felt a thrill within him. Perhaps it was Anglachel: a blade whose blood-thirst communicated itself to him. Perhaps it was Túrin, fighting beside him. At first the sight of the dragon-helm, and of Túrin’s grim, war-like face beneath it, had struck him with something like dread, yet it had soon become a comforting sight. Beside Túrin he knew no fear, but an intoxicating desire for the fray that would perhaps have surprised his former fellow hunters. Túrin’s recklessness infected him, the sword sang in his hand. Sometimes the enthusiasm left him and he reeled; Mablung, he thought, would scarcely have recognised the prudent warden of the marches he had been. But that never lasted long. His fury lent him fame: those who lived about Amon Rûdh began to speak of Dor Cúarthol, the Land of Bow and Helm. In one name he and Túrin were joined. Sometimes he felt as though he and Túrin, and all who shared their lives, were hurtling along, not knowing where they went - and he wondered if they were speeding towards some victory, or to their doom. But he did not dare voice his thought to Túrin - not when he was so glad to be ‘burning the black hand of Morgoth’, so hopeful.

And the field, at least, was not Amon Rûdh. The hill loomed in his thoughts, as it ever did on the horizon, and he had come to find its halls stifling, haunted as they were by Mîm. The Petty-Dwarf always met him with raw, unassuaged loathing, and he could not now find it in himself to protest. He did his best to avoid him, but the corridors of Bar-en-Danwedh were dark and twisting. He came upon Mîm at unawares, and Mîm seemed to dog his steps. Just as his discussion with Túrin had caused his memories of the Noegyth Nibin to resurface, so he was reconsidering Amon Rûdh. Before it had only been a smudge on maps, an impracticable, useless eminence beyond the borders of Doriath, not worth occupying; now he grew aware of its history, its place, the delvings which the Dwarves had made. Its convoluted hallways seemed immense to him, far greater than the outward semblance of the hill would suggest. Just like Mîm, who was reluctant to speak of his past and his kin, Bar-en-Danwedh was unwilling to unfold its secrets - to Beleg, at any rate. Once he had found Andróg in some dead-end - what he had took to be a pantry - with his eye to a wall, as though eyeing the rock face closely. When he had looked himself, he had found a minute hole, through which it was possible to look in the room beyond. On the other side it was impossible to detect the hole, or any observer. Andróg, when pressed, had only answered that he had found the thing by chance, and that he knew of no other. But Beleg, of course, trusted him little, and afterwards he ever felt that eyes were on him, following him to the innermost recesses of the rock, and even to the chamber he shared with Túrin.

Sometimes the hill showed him things he did not wish to see. He had happened on Mîm once, along with his son Ibun, in an hitherto unexplored cavern. Ibun, Túrin had said, was not young any more; like some people of the Edain, he had grown soft-witted in his old age. Mîm, though more bent and whiter, was sharper-minded than he was, and treated him like a child: sometimes with impatience, and sometimes with a rough, gruff care. At times he could be seen, trudging through the halls, with soft and vacant eyes. 

Now he was with his father, in some dark nook. Beleg would rather have caught them plotting amongst themselves, in secret, cackling whispers. But no: Mîm was tearing at his beard, and singing. His song was low, and rough, in a tongue Beleg did not know, but there was no mistaking its meaning. It was the sound of an old, lonely creature, without hope of seeing its kin, at the very end of its line; close to death, and doomed to wait for it in halls haunted by his son’s killers. All this Beleg heard, though he understood no words; it was unlovely to his ears, sung by his enemy - and the most sorrowful sound he had yet heard. But he kept the memory to himself.

 


	8. Chapter 8

They brought back Andróg, lying on a stretcher, dying. His sweat-soaked hair clung to his face; his eyes rolled; he shuddered near constantly. He muttered curses, angrily at first, and then, as his strength faded, only in a steady but incoherent stream of obscenities, as though by speaking without cease, raging at his fate, he could cling to life.

“What happened to him?” Beleg asked, as he was laid in the main hall, close to the fire. Túrin answered:

“He braved Mîm’s curse after all. He should not have. He was hit by a poisoned arrow.”

There was a noise in the darkness behind them, and Beleg knew, without turning, that it was Mîm.

“He’ll die as he killed,” Mîm said, with a tone of grim of satisfaction.

 

*

 

Beleg might have let him die. He could have, quite simply, could have walked out that night, and in the morning found Andróg dead. An easy repayment for Andróg’s torment of him, the fulfilment of Mîm’s vengeance. But he had been taught otherwise. So he worked through the night, mixing potions from such plants as he had brought from the stores of Menegroth. Túrin, weary from his expedition, assisted him as he could, then looked on tiredly. 

Andróg looked at him through a haze of delirium. Beleg though he himself must have looked like this, in the worst throes of thirst and cold, back when Andróg had had him tied to the tree. But Andróg, white-faced, his eyes sunk deep into their sockets, seemed to laugh as Beleg pressed a cup to his lips. A ghastly expression drew his thin lips from his teeth.

“Poison me?” he said.

“No need,” Beleg answered coldly.

Andróg drank.

 

*

 

It was the deepest hour of the night, and Túrin was asleep at last, slumped on his bench.

Andróg's eyes opened, just a fraction. They were webbed with red, and the effort of moving them alone seemed to weary Andróg. They fell on Beleg first, then on Túrin. 

An expression of pathetic, hopeless longing painted itself on his face. He was close to death, or thought himself to be; perhaps he knew that Beleg already knew... He raised a shaky hand, and extended it towards Túrin. He could not touch him, and Túrin did not even stir.

After a while, Beleg took his hand, trembling as it was, and laid Andróg's arm on his chest. Andróg lifted his eyes to him. There was no hatred left in his exhausted face. A moment later his eyes closed.

 

*

 

In the early hours of dawn, the worst seemed to have passed. Andróg lay motionless on his cot, looking ill still but peaceful. His pulse was thin but steady, his breathing regular.

“He’ll live, probably,” Beleg said. Túrin nodded, and sat down close to Beleg. He took Beleg’s hand, still smeared with the unguent he had rubbed into Andróg’s wound, between his own, in a rare moment of tenderness outside their chamber. But then Andróg was unlikely to awake at that time.

“Thank you,” he said.

For a while they sat like this. Beleg, who had rested but little the night before, felt the strain of his healing efforts. He must have dozed off then, his neck stooping, mind drifting to a shallow sleep. He awoke with a jolt, and found Mîm standing before them.

“He’s alive, then?” Beleg nodded. “Curse you,” Mîm said. “Curse you.”

And then he said it again and again. But there was a note of disbelief in his voice now, for the failure of his curse upon Andróg. He shouted now, in a raw, raspy voice, in disbelief, powerlessness and despair, and his curse seemed now to fall on Túrin also, whom he had loved before, and who needed no curse beside that of Morgoth.

 

*

 

In the following days, Andróg’s health improved, and he even showed some gratefulness to Beleg. Mîm retreated to his hidden halls, and showed himself but little. But Beleg felt uneasy, as though something were off-balance. At night he dreamt that a great weighted net, such as the Orcs used to take captives, was flung over Amon Rûdh, and drawn tight. He felt stifled, dogged by doom. Perhaps this was how Túrin always felt. One day Mîm and Ibûn were nowhere to be found.

“They’ll be out foraging, looking for roots,” Túrin said to him, pressing a kiss to his naked shoulder. But his words did not alleviate Beleg’s unease. He longed for Doriath, then, as rarely before, though he could not explain it. But he looked on Túrin, his stern beauty, his youth, his solemn eyes, and that longing died within him.

 _He has few years_ , he thought.

Each time he touched Túrin, his misgivings returned to him, with a sickening jolt; but the love he felt was no less violent.

 

*

 

The attack began while they were lying half-entwined, almost asleep. They hastily slipped on clothes in the dark, lit only by the remaining embers of their fire, hearing the commotion and confusion outside the chamber. Because his fears were being realised at last, Beleg felt no fear now, only a grim resolution, as he gripped Anglachel. As for Túrin, his face shadowed and only lit by the barest of glows, framed by the Dragon-helm, he looked very fell, fierce and beautiful. As they left the room he turned briefly to Beleg, and clasped his hand. Then he was stepping ahead, leading the way through the halls, towards the hilltop.

All around them the corridors swarmed with Orcs, and the air was thick with smoke. The very hill seemed to writhe as if to expel them. _The House of Ransom_ , Beleg thought, _a Petty-Dwarf’s weregild, paid not in gold but in blood._ But the Dragon-helm shone before him, a glint of gold in the dark, and wielding his black sword he followed.


	9. Chapter 9

Beleg awoke and smelled blood. The stench of it hung in the air, thick and sickening. He breathed it in and retched. When he raised his head he saw the men that lay dead on the hill summit, all about him. The moonlight picked out details in this sea of corpses: a hand, a face, blood-soaked hair, someone’s slashed belly.

His wrists were bound with Orcish rope, rough and sturdy, but the fetters that tied him to a stake in the ground had been cut. Sitting up, he found Andróg lying beside him, a knife cradled in his slack hands. Beleg leant towards him, slipped his hand under Andróg’s head so he could look into the other’s eyes. He was still alive, but only just. There was blood on his face and on his mouth, and as his eyes met Beleg’s, he mumbled something. Blood sprayed over his lips, and Beleg listened to him as he died. Then he was gone, and Beleg was alone on the hill top.

He scrambled to his feet, legs trembling and buckling under his weight. There was a wound in his side, which he touched gingerly, and his shirt and jerkin were soaked through with blood; another in his leg; a third on his head. He did not remember how exactly he was wounded or when he lost consciousness. Anglachel lay on the ground beside him, and with gritted teeth he bent down to pick it up. His fingers trembled as they touched the hilt, and his grip felt weak.

He made his way through the dead, feet dragging, his sword held low. Pain thrummed through his body each time he breathed in or took a step. When nausea hit and his sight grew clouded he paused for a while, then he went looking again. 

A muttered cackle, or perhaps a rasp of breath, breached the silence.

“He is not here.”

Beleg turned slowly. Mîm sat there in the moonlight. He too was covered in blood, the greyish-white of his beard stained dark red. 

“Where is he then? Is he alive?” Beleg growled, or tried to growl.

“They did not harm him. I bargained for that. They took him away.”

“To Angband?”

Mîm nodded. His eyes did not leave Beleg but rested on him as he stooped, leaning on his sword, to catch his breath again. When he could, Beleg spoke again.

“They left me alive. Was that also part of the bargain?”

The dirty wisps of Mîm’s beard hid his mouth, but Beleg knew that he was smiling nonetheless. His dark eyes twinkled, and he raised his hands from his lap. A great knife lay across his legs, a nasty looking weapon. There was even a whetstone by Mîm’s feet.

“Yes,” Mîm said.

Beleg raised Anglachel, pointed it towards Mîm. His arm trembled with the effort. Mîm laughed.

“No need,” he said. As he shifted, Beleg saw that he had been pierced with two arrows. One, low on his side, he could swear had been fired by Andróg; the other, in his leg, was an Orc’s arrow. Servants of Morgoth rarely repaid service fairly. But Petty-Dwarves were sturdy creatures. They must have been, from the days their kin chased them away, and they delved secret places beneath the earth.

“You will not die of this wound,” Beleg said.

“Perhaps not. You will live too, I think.”

Beleg nodded, and lowered himself to the ground. He could hear Mîm’s laboured breathing now, so deep was the silence on the hill. He laid Anglachel across his knees, though he still ached to plunge into Mîm’s breast. If he were to extend his arm, to lunge, he could do it even now. Maybe Mîm would throw his own knife. But Túrin was alive, somewhere, driven North, bound and beaten. If the outlaws were alive, if he could muster their forces, they could gain on the Orcs, hindered as they were by sunlight; find Túrin; free him… But no. They were lying dead about him, all past his healing, all of these fragile Men - and only Elf and Dwarf remained.

“Where’s that son of yours, Mîm?” he asked.

The old Dwarf, whose head has fallen on his chest, raised it again to look at Beleg. 

“Ibun,” he said, and his eyes glimmered darkly. Then he was silent for a while, and Beleg did not think that this was because of the pain of his wounds alone. “The Orcs did not send him to me after all. I think he must be dead.” 

And here they were: Beleg, tightening his grip on Anglachel, Mîm, on his dagger - even Andróg lay with his bow beside him. Elf and Dwarf and Man, locked in enmity - but for one that they loved. Even Mîm, in his own fashion, and although he had loved his son more. And Túrin had loved them too, his outlaws, enough to forsake Doriath, and even Mîm, to whom he had been a friend. Perhaps it was why he could not bring himself to slay Mîm, for all his desire. He tried, again, raising his sword, but Mîm merely looked coldly at the blade.

“Anglachel,” he said. “We knew the smith. He was friendly to our kin, and had little love for his own.” 

Beleg, giving up at last, let the blade fall back to the ground. 

“What of it?” he said.

“Nothing,” said Mîm. A strange expression came on his face, and he said in a low voice. “Be careful of that blade.”

“I will,” Beleg said, and then he laughed, in exhaustion and without joy, and then wept for the loss of Túrin. “If he is dead,” he said, in a raspy, tear-choked voice, “I shall kill you for good, Mîm.” _And slink back brokenly to Doriath, or die_. “And if he is alive I'll free him.” And he thought of the boy he had first met, and the youth he had seen grow. And the wilfulness and fate that bore him ever way from Beleg – and yet Beleg would follow, casting away all he had known and all his wisdom.

He rose, Anglachel in his hand. He did not look back at Mîm, and made his way through the dead. He had no wish to remain for one more moment on Amon Rûdh, or to walk through what had been Bar-en-Danwedh. Down the steep and rocky path he went, clutching at his wounded side and stifling a scream of anguish, and it seemed to him that he was hurtling down into the dark. But his love, as strong as any curse, led him forth. Mîm remained alone on the bald and bloody hill top.

 


End file.
